IRON SPIRITS' KILL BILL REVIEW

Huzzahwesome. Absolutely Huzzahwesome.

First I should speak to the Uma Thurman content. Unlike most movies, which sadly lack Uma Thurman, and foolishly waste film stock by not lingering on her every feature, this one has what might finally be considered the necessary Uma Thurman content. Now with this particular fetish that I and apparantly Quentin share out of the way, Kill Bill II rocks, is the opposite and perfection of Hollywood, and these are movies that rise to the level of art.

Kill Bill understands the medium's past and reinterprets it in a new, and a far more ambitious context, but, and here is where I differ with the movie's critics, it avoids meaningless jumbled pastiche. It's absurd and wildy entertaining characters are wisely never allowed to laugh it off, even if you can. Through a tremendously beautiful technical understanding of film history (look for the best black and white I've seen in a decade at the opening, the color positives in the training flashbacks - the rigorous application of physical film effects)., Tarrantino keeps putting up walls that signal ironic coolness, but then uses the story, the music, the sound to pierce uncomfortable holes through the barriers. Like all good art, it plays lightly and skillfully around its own illusions, but uses them to devastating effect. You watch this beautiful movie space unfold before you like a grand opera set, but your empathy with the Bride is unlimited. It cannot match but it does, like falling in love with the paint that makes up the girl in a Vermeer.

It has one of the most disarming scenes I think I've ever witnessed as the film pushes towards climax and the Bride closes in on her target - and props to David Carradine for creating a character full of sonorous, charming, compelling menace.

It has a Kabuki quality, revelling in but mastering its staginess. Naming the references is interesting but doesn't matter, and I think too much has been written about this aspect - the sources are just building blocks for this revenge opera.

The fights are smaller, much more dangerous, more surprising. It comes down out of high cartoon to low, shameless, perfect melodrama. Opponents are more intelligent, far more engaged. The most dangerous scene involves chatting on a couch, another over a pregnancy test. And watch out if you're claustrophobic and haven't studied with Master Pai.

This is a strange creature: a wildly entertaining, dense and difficult film featuring deeply silly subject matter. I will gladly oogle the DVD, but this movie is so attentive to film craft it will be like a cheap van gogh print - good, inspiring, half complete. It's so visually operational that if you're planning on renting a non-wide screen tape save yourself the trouble and have a friend describe it to you over the phone.

It disappoints those who couldn't see beyond the amazingly sword play in vol I, or whose movie powers of description are exhausted at "quirky." Hate if you will, that's okay, but like me commenting on Warhol you have to offer respect for sheer magnificent craft. The ideas of Kill Bill lie deeply within it's craft, not the script per se, fun as it is, and not the subject matter so much.

Of course, Uma had me at the wink in the trailer. And if you don't see this in a theater, on film, you're a damn fool, are uncultured, half-blind, and I'm telling the most dangerous woman in the world where you live.

And if Dr. X passes this up, who has every promise of enjoying this on every level, I'm going medieval on his assessment of 14th Century Venetian Portrait Painting.

Ebert Review

[In my opinion, it is an exuberant celebration of moviemaking, coasting with heedless joy from one audacious chapter to another, working as irony, working as satire, working as drama, working as pure action. One of the best films of the year. - Dr. X ]

A foolish attempt, Dr. X. One should always plagiarize from the middle of the review.